Real Oreos Rule | Celeste Johnson

Reduced fat Oreos.... NASTY!!! *gagging* As most people know, I LOVE Oreos!! A little too much. They are my nightly treat after the kids go to bed. So I decided to try the reduced fat ones..... big mistake! I should have learned my lesson a few years ago when I tried reduced fat Ruffles and fat free onion dip *still shuddering with disgust*

.........go back in time with me..........

Picture me, a few nights ago, excitedly tearing open the newly purchased package of reduced fat Oreos and taking out 6 with delight. My nose can smell the lovely scent of fresh Oreos and I enter a state of euphoria. Oreos can only be enjoyed one way: with milk! So I pour myself a nice tall glass of cold milk.

I take my tantalizing treasures with me to the living room where I sit on the couch to watch King of Queens and enjoy my little chocolate cookies. As I carefully twist the top off the first Oreo, my taste buds drool with delight. Anticipation is high as I stick my tongue out and lick the filling. For a split second, all is well in my world.

Then, without warning, my tongue retracts in horror. My taste buds start convulsing with disgust. "Must drink milk NOW!" is all I can think of to rid my poor tongue from the taste of putridness. After guzzling my milk with the gusto of an olypian, I stare at the Oreo culprit. I gaze at it in awe, how can something look so tasty, yet taste so wrong?

I think and rationalize to myself, "Oh, I must have been expecting it to taste just like regular Oreo filling and my tongue wasn't used to this different flavor." So what do I do?? I decide to give it another shot..... this time, I carefully stick out my tongue, which has a mind of its own and is upset at what it knows is coming. In protest, it tries so hard to get back inside the safety of my mouth. But it doesn't prevail in time, that white filling attacks it again. Now I have angered my tongue twice - it isn't happy with me.

I start making that "cat-hacking-a-hairball" noise. To end my misery, I chug down the rest of my milk. I go into the kitchen to get MORE milk and stare with hatred at the pretty blue Oreo package. It was then that it occurred to me - I just spent $2.50 for those Oreos that tasted like something I could have got for free from the bottom of my garbage can!!

The moral of the story is: reduced fat Oreos are what evil tastes like.

Rolling Back Prices | Celeste Johnson

I will never think of the well-known "Rolling Back Prices" slogan at Wal-Mart the same anymore. Unless you have been under a rock for your whole life, you have shopped at Wal-Mart, have seen the ads, the TV commercials, and signs in their stores. They are known for "rolling back prices" to save their customers money, yet are notorious for carefully and secretly raising their prices somewhere else in the store - or in this case, being blatantly obvious in their price switching game of "rolling back prices."

On this most recent trip to the local Wal-Mart, I walked by the cereal aisle - which has a stand of bananas hanging from it like ornaments on a Christmas tree. Good selling strategy on their part; putting the bananas by the cereal aisle. Same good tactic as putting candy and gum at their registers just to drive us moms crazy with all the, "Mooooooomy, I want a candy." "No, you can't have any." "But I reeeeeaaaallly want a Butterfinger." "I know you do sweetie, but you can't have one because you misbehaved." "No I didn't! She started it!" "Either way, my answer is still no." "PULEEEEEEZ!!!!! I will cry if I don't get one!!!" I quickly grab a Butterfinger, put it on the conveyor belt, which stops their whining. However, I smile and say, "That candy is for me."

Anyhoo, I digress.... I was in a hurry this day, so I shopped without a cart. I tend to spend less that way with a personal deal that I can buy whatever I can carry. At any given point on one of these cart-less excursions, you will see me, a crazy brunette, with my arms full and sometimes holding something in my mouth like a hanger to an outfit I want. As I past this banana display, I glanced at the sign while walking briskly. It caught my eye, I did a double take, and looked like a mad woman laughing loudly to myself, almost dropping what I was carrying. I carefully put them down, took out my trusty cell phone and quickly snapped a picture. My husband and I seem to have a keen eye when it comes to one of Wal-Mart's wonderful money saving signs. We have quite the collection of some brilliant Wal-Mart associates' errors. However, this was the mother of all "rolled back prices."

Through the wonders of modern technology, I was able to forward that picture to several people at once. Some didn't get it, some did. Guess it takes a trained eye to see the oddities and idiosyncrasies of this life. Or maybe it is just my anal retentive personality that notices mistakes and has to point them out to others. Either way, I get joy out of simple things like this.